


corpse walking

by mazabm



Series: world shifts series [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, POV Frank Castle, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, maria is mentioned but this completely focuses on karen and frank, micro and karen trying to keep frank alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 07:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17240114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazabm/pseuds/mazabm
Summary: The Punisher belongs to Karen and Frank belongs to Maria, they don't really talk about it.A Frank add on to world shifts.Looking at how Frank and Karen work in this world when Maria isn't thereCan be a read alone or before world shifts





	corpse walking

**Author's Note:**

> takes place in World Shifts (a kinda weird timeline, Maria’s alive!), this completely focuses on Frank and Karen as it deals with the Punisher only. Occurs late or after the aftermath of World Shifts  
> Can be read alone

Sometimes he wonders if he’s already dead.  It’s the night that does it, the darkness that settles on the streets, the crack of bones beneath his hands.  The permanent aches, the flashes of red. He feels like a walking corpse, stiff and heavy.

On these nights, he doesn't think about them anymore. he did before, of course, when all that drove him was a bullet in his brain and the thoughts of their dead bodies.  Now, it's their smiles and hugs he thinks about, or whether or not someone's homework got done. Those thoughts are distracting, it's going to get him killed. So he thinks about her.

He can still see the beginning, when she doesn't flinch from shoving a photo of his family in his face reminding him of what he lost, how she found a way into his life and forcibly stayed there, all shining blue eyes and justice.

He's following her intel on this one after all.  She tries not to help him, despite what she says, he knows she still believes in justice within systems. On occasion, she even writes a puff piece, demanding that some Senator or Mayor do even more, believes in them when they say they will. She genuinely believes that when the cops take down the people she gives them, she's doing good.  It drives her, forces her into bigger and bigger spotlights (he's scared for her but he never says anything because she'll never forgive him if he does) But sometimes there are people that the police or FBI won't take from her, men who have spent more money on this city to ensure their own power rather than ever help anyone.  That's the information she grudgingly gives to him, The Punisher. She will have already put together the story, she's just waiting for an ending and he gives her one, every time.

Sometimes it's a laptop, still open, caked with blood.  She'll complain about the blood flakes on her table but she already has a plastic little sheet she sits under it, pulls on a pair of gloves like she's a doctor, a professional.  Sometimes she might even crack a smile, look up at him.

”Where’s the charger?” or "At least it's in one piece this time." Trying to make the Punisher crack a smile.

Sometimes it's a phone, a notebook, sometimes it just him and her, talking, as he holds her hand and tells her of the darkness lurking right outside her view.  She's hasn’t been scared of him for a long time (terrified for him, disappointed but not scared of him) and he tries to tell her stories, to drive home the fact that the Punisher is no one’s friend, no one's father, no one's husband.  But she’ll smile and kiss his cheekbones and then use whatever he gave her to make life real difficult for any son of a bitch that crosses into her crosshairs. She's ruthless and he wonders if he did that, or if she had always been like that and he just gave her the means.

It's dangerous, these thoughts but it's easier than thinking about them.  It's easier to think of blue eyes and blonde hair, of a hand holding a steady gun, pointed at his face. It's easier than thinking of his kids at home and Maria wondering if he's still alive, better than thinking of the tears if he doesn't come home.

There he goes, living again when he needs to be dead, even just thinking of her name throws him off and he gets a hard punch to the cheek and reacts accordingly.

The Punisher is a monster and that's what they expect so he gives them what they expect. There is blood on the floor but he knows the majority isn't his and that's what matters.

”The notebook isn't here.” and he can hear both her and Micro make the same sound.

”What do you mean it's not there, I saw him put it in his desk himself!” and she sounds agitated and he can see her, pacing to her door to double check her locks, pacing back to the table, trying to figure out what's wrong.  He can imagine her running a hand through her hair, the blonde strands coming undone from her braid.

”I'm checking the logs, he didn't move it.” And Micro is calm (the man is with his family, he's doing this as a favor to Frank not because he wants to)

”Well I need someone to figure it out now.”  And he knows they can both hear the incoming combat boots on the connection, Micro types faster, she groans in frustration.

”Check the desk again, maybe there's a secret panel. We have to find that notebook, we don't know where the girls are yet.” This whole thing is way out her league (she's never listened to a Punisher night if she didn't have too, it stresses her out, makes her worry for him) and that's her losing it voice, where she's wondering if she should have gone to the cops on this one, if this is gonna be the one where she gets him killed and he lectures himself for thinking about comforting her. He follows her suggestion instead, his hand slipping on a switch and he slides the notebook under his vest.

”Got it, moving.”  And his heart does a strange thing when he hears Karen's soft sigh of relief.

”Good. Come here,” she says softly (and here is just another word for home and me) and Micro coughs and then his line goes dead. He's probably going to sleep next to his wife, he deserves it.

And there is something about Karen Page that makes him get there fast, making sure no one tails him.  He leans back and she knows he feels her watching her lock each of the locks on her door, he thinks what he always thinks when he looks at her, she's a vision, an angel (she saved him, in her own way). Something about her has him stripping off his jacket and vest, letting the heavy metal mask clang on the floor. He starts to look more like a man again, and not a ghost and her hands are on his as he works on his pants. They don't leave not even when he's pushing her gently into her bed and curling by her side.  She doesn't say anything about Maria and his kids and he doesn't either. He's still thinking of here and of her, and of the now. It's easy, like breathing when he kisses her (and it's a kiss that holds how much she likes him being alive in it)

”That was a risk,”  She says when she pulls away, and he doesn't roll his eyes. she's the one always taking risks, always seeing how far she can push a situation before it comes crashing down on her. But he can hear the worry in her voice and as The Punisher crushes that soft instinct to reach out to her, she grips his hands tighter.  

”You told me he's moving the girls soon, I'm gonna get them home.” His voice is low and rough and she looks at him with so much hope that he thinks about ripping his own eyes out so he doesn't see it.  The Punisher is going to let her down one day and he hopes he's not alive to see it (the Frank part of him bristles at the thought of dying again, of leaving his kids, of leaving Maria, but the Punisher presses him back down, its not time for him yet)

The Punisher likes it here, tucked between her legs, he still smells like gunpowder and danger and she breathes it in like she missed it (maybe she does, he was all she had back when Murdock was dead, to believe that was a simpler time and place) And he's not really sure what he's doing here, he has a bed in his own house, can kiss his kids forehead, he can be done and than he thinks about the hope in her blue eyes, thinks about the girls who look at him likes he's some kinda savior (and he's never been a martyr like Murdock, never done this because he has no other choice because he does) and maybe she can sense him thinking too hard, and because she  presses hard on his bruises for his attention and she has it, she always does.

”We will bring them home.” She says to him and her blue eyes are so serious. In other life, in a better world, Karen Page could have been someone’s superhero, someone Lois Lane even but all she got was a couple of fucked up vigilantes, several wars that weren't hers, and a city so full of violence it's gonna destroy them all someday. ”We will.” and he presses his lips to hers again hard and it's a cliche at this point but The Punisher finally goes down and Frank comes up. And she smiles into his mouth recognizing the change.

”There you are,”  she says like he's been missing and when they kiss again it leads to wherever she wants it to go.

“Come over for breakfast?”  He’ll say in the morning and look at Maria’s smile in the soft sunlight, drop his kids off at school but for now, he stays molded to her body, one of her hands in his hair gently rubbing at the gunshot wound that changed everything, sometimes it feels good to be reminded that  he’s not dead.

**Author's Note:**

> all three of the World Shifts has a different format so if you read all three you're a champion  
> Frank separates his Punisher self from his Frank (married man, loving father of two) self and I kinda dug into that and stayed there for this. Maria sees his one side, Karen sees the other side and when they're all together he's one (he really needs to see a therapist, anyone tbh)  
> this was supposed to be a lot darker, maybe next time (and if there is another one it will not be in the same format as this one, idk what I'm doing at this point)


End file.
